Supporters of nuclear power hope that small nuclear reactors, unlike large plants, will be able to compete economically with other sources of electricity. But according to M.V. Ramana, a Professor at the University of British Columbia, this is likely to be a vain hope. In fact, according to Ramana, in the absence of a mass market, they may be even more expensive than large plants. … [Read more...]

While peak demand grew, the use of demand response declined by 10% last year in the U.S., writes Fereidoon Sioshansi, publisher of newsletter EEnergy Informer and editor of Innovation & Disruption at the Grid’s Edge. The decline is no incident, notes Sioshansi: regulators are failing to take an active role. Millions of advanced meters are performing dumb tasks. … [Read more...]

Just six years ago, more than 40% of Britain’s electricity was generated by burning coal. Today, that figure is just 7%. Yet if the story of 2016 was the dramatic demise of coal and its replacement by natural gas, then 2017 was most definitely about the growth of wind power, write Grant Wilson and Iain Staffell. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]

On 28 November, the Industry committee of the European Parliament will deliver a crucial vote on the EU 2030 energy efficiency target. According to Clémence Hutin, who works for the Climate Justice and Energy Programme of Friends of the Earth Europe, there is cross-party support for an ambitious 40% target, but she warns that two key rapporteurs on the file are no friends of energy efficiency. Both, she says, have incorrectly argued that higher … [Read more...]

Berkeley Lab has released a new report that discusses who should supply the new value-added services that are emerging in the electricity market - and what policies and regulations are needed to nurture this new market. The report applies to the U.S., but includes lots of lessons for Europe as well. … [Read more...]

Blockchain technology offers cost-saving and process efficiencies for the energy sector that are too compelling to ignore, write Luis Colasante and Taniga Krish for Oilprice.com. But it does require a clear framework where all participants agree on the standards and rules. … [Read more...]

Bertrand Piccard, the man who flew around the world in a solar-powered airplane, will be taking another trip around the world. This time he will show governments 1,000 innovations that together will make it possible to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by half. “I want to show that it is possible and profitable for countries to be much more ambitious in their climate policies”, says Piccard, who considers this the second … [Read more...]

The UK government’s new Clean Growth Strategy gives quite a lot of priority to energy efficiency. That’s good news, write Jan Rosenow and Richard Cowart of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). What’s needed next is to develop the policies that actually deliver the goods. This can be done by following the principle of Efficiency First. … [Read more...]

The UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy will lead to new markets being created which could generate up to £21 billion in value annually for utilities, according to new research from Stephen Hall of the University of Leeds and Jeffrey Hardy of Imperial College London. Their research, which focuses on the effects of energy policy on the creation of new markets, can help companies plan for the future. Courtesy The Conversation. … [Read more...]

While the U.S. government is abandoning Obama’s Clean Power Plan and taking the U.S. back to the age of fossil fuels, the new Dutch government has presented an unexpectedly ambitious climate and energy policy. The Netherlands will adopt a Climate Law and a minimum CO2 price and it wants to persuade the EU to increase its CO2-reduction ambition from the current 40% in 2030 to 55%. It also intends to close all its coal-fired power stations by 2030 … [Read more...]

The success of the clean energy transition will depend to a large extent on the actions of local and regional authorities. Sustainability officers from Paris, Sabine Romon, and Vienna, Bernd Vogl, explain what clean energy goals they have set themselves and how they are planning to achieve them. “The thing to start with is the infrastructure”, says Vogl. “The first task is to work on our public buildings”, says Romon, who warns that Paris' ban on … [Read more...]

Global energy demand will plateau from 2030, oil demand will flatten from 2020 to 2028 and go to a significant decline thereafter, the shift to renewable energy will be quicker and more massive than most people realize, yet the energy transition will not be difficult to finance. These are some of the momentous conclusions of a set of major new reports from independent energy consultancy DNV GL, under the name Energy Transition Outlook (ETO). They … [Read more...]

Mark Z. Jacobson, the famed professor at the Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences, and 26 of his colleagues have compiled a report that shows exactly how 139 nations could transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050 without throwing millions of people out of work. In fact, they contend that the changeover would actually spur job growth while dramatically reducing carbon emissions, writes Steve Hanley. Article courtesy of … [Read more...]

The results of the European Council’s proposals on energy efficiency are in: they will reduce the current EU energy efficiency target from 1.5% per year to less than half of that. That is, in the most optimistic scenario. In a worst-case scenario, the target could plummet to 0.04%, writes Jan Rosenow of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP). According to Rosenow, this will make it nearly impossible for the EU to deliver on "Paris". … [Read more...]

Energy markets are in the middle of a revolution, triggered by decarbonisation and innovation. History suggests that this is not a safe place to be, not even for the revolutionaries, but especially not for the ‘old guard’. Stephen Woodhouse and Simon Bradbury of Pöyry Management Consulting investigate the key characteristics necessary for a successful future energy company. (This article was adapted from a new book, Innovation and Disruption at … [Read more...]